It takes faith for the public to support the movement of dangerous goods.

Faith that the people who are doing the work have the training, procedures and equipment they need to protect themselves and the communities and natural environment through which it will pass from grievous harm.

It takes faith that the technology they have to do their jobs is reliable, tested and as fail safe as possible.

It takes faith that in what is assessed as the unlikely event there is an accident, that the damage can be contained and that any cleanup needed will be done quickly and the costs will be paid by those responsible.

Bitumen from the Alberta oilsands is a dangerous product. It is easily spread by water, toxic to wildlife and difficult and expensive to clean up.

And like most of the dangerous goods that we transport, it’s deemed to be essential to our way of life.

Not everyone agrees that it is necessary, of course. Many of the opponents of transporting bitumen would prefer to see it left in the ground. That’s an argument I’ll leave for another day even though I appreciate that if you don’t believe oil is a necessary commodity, you won’t see the need for tolerating any risk associated with its transportation or use.

But if you accept the premise that oil in its many forms is still an important commodity for Canada as both a revenue and energy source and that it will be for the foreseeable future, then we have to figure out how to move it to market in a manner that inspires in the public the necessary faith that it is being done within a tolerable level of risk.

The report this week by the federal Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development was just the latest confirmation that Ottawa is doing a lousy job of inspiring such faith.

Scott Vaughan says the resources and regulations the federal government has for dealing with marine oil spills are inadequate to cope with current traffic and would be completely overwhelmed by an incident involving the super tankers that would be fed by the two major pipeline projects now being planned.

Vaughan was specifically looking at what financial assurances would be in place to cover oil spills. What he found was that the amounts are billions of dollars short of what might be needed, a shortfall that would ultimately have to be made up by taxpayers in the event of a major spill.

In addition, he says the cleanup plans required are for much smaller ships than those contemplated to service Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project and that already move through Vancouver Harbour with bitumen from Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

Public acceptance of both the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and marine terminal at Kitimat, and the Kinder Morgan expansion depends on confidence that Ottawa and the pipeline companies are able to perform as they promise.

But in the past couple of years, the federal government has seemed intent on proving that its word on environmental and maritime safety isn’t worth very much.

In Vancouver, contrary to all evidence, the Coast Guard insisted that shutting the Kitsilano rescue base will not leave local mariners at greater risk, even though the response time to an accident will be longer, especially in winter.

And inexplicably, they moved the oil spill response centre from Vancouver to Ottawa right in the middle of the heated public debate over the planned increase in oil shipments on the west coast.

When we can see that on issues we understand the assurances given by the federal government aren’t worth very much, what incentive is there to trust the promises of competent action on issues that require a much greater act of faith?

If the Conservative government believes that we need a secure transportation corridor for all of the goods produced in Canada to west coast ports, it’s going to have to start proving that it has at least as much concern about the environment as most Canadians now have.

What we’ve seen instead is across the board cutbacks on environmental monitoring and research capacity and an erosion of legal protections to the environment that have been built up over the past several decades.

Is this a government you would trust with shipping dangerous goods through your backyard? If Alberta can’t get its oil out, Ottawa has to take part of the blame.

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